Netflix offers users to watch their favorite tv shows, movies, and documentaries anytime from any device like smartphones, computers, and laptops. Now, Ubuntu users can also watch Netflix on their system due to the easy accessibility on Linux. There is a specific way to install Netflix and if you wish to watch on an Ubuntu device. Read on to knowhow to watch Netflix on Ubuntu, we have managed to provide complete details.
How to Watch Netflix on Ubuntu
A few years back, there was a Netflix app for Linux Ubuntu, but it was not a native Linux app and has now been discontinued. There is no specific desktop app for Netflix, so users use a web browser to watch Netflix on Ubuntu. In case you want to watch Netflix US but from outside the US, then use any premium DNS service for accessing it.
How to Watch Netflix on Ubuntu (Ubuntu 20.04)
Open the Linux terminal and execute the below command for installing the FFmpeg library:
Not installing the FFmpeg library would lead to having errors while using Netflix on Ubuntu.
Now, enable the DRM on Firefox, and you can enable it manually, or Firefox will automatically redirect you to enable DRM after logging in to the Netflix account.
Finally, you can watch Netflix on Ubuntu 20.04 without having any trouble. You can also use Google Chrome because it does not require any setup to watch Netflix on Ubuntu.
How to Watch Netflix on Ubuntu (older versions of Ubuntu like 14.04)
For using Netflix on Ubuntu’s older version, install libnss3 in the system by executing the below command in the Linux terminal.
sudo is a short name of SuperUser DO, which is used to access all of the restricted files because Linux restricts access to prevent sensitive files from issues.
you can also use Personal Package Archives (PPA) for installing it:
After installing libnss3, restart your computer/laptops and ensure that Netflix has access to HTML5 playback.
Login to the Netflix account and go to the account settings, then select playback settings.
You have to tick mark the HTML5 viewing option, and now you can start to use Netflix.
Conclusion
That wraps up the complete details on how to watch Netflix on Ubuntu. We have gathered this information and tried it on multiple systems to ensure that you get the correct information through our article. Netflix is a great platform to watch movies and tv series and offers device friendly versions. So, follow these steps and get ready to binge-watch your favorite shows this holiday season!
About the author
Simran Kaur
Simran works as a technical writer. The graduate in MS Computer Science from the well known CS hub, aka Silicon Valley, is also an editor of the website. She enjoys writing about any tech topic, including programming, algorithms, cloud, data science, and AI. Travelling, sketching, and gardening are the hobbies that interest her.
A few years back, it watching Netflix on Linux required tweaking your system, installing extra libraries, switching user agents in the web browser.
The good news is that Netflix is now completely supported on Linux. You don’t need to do any extra efforts to watch Netflix on Linux anymore. Well, mostly.
How to watch Netflix on Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution
Did I say Netflix is now completely supported on Linux? That’s only part true. Watching Netflix also depend on the choice of your web browser.
If you want to watch Netflix without any effort, simply use Google Chrome. Google Chrome is the one browser that supports Netflix without any additional requirement.
You install Google Chrome on Ubuntu or whichever Linux you are using, log into Netflix and start watching our favorite movie or web series. It’s been possible because Netflix now uses HTML5 playback by default.
What about watching Netflix on other web browsers?
You can watch Netflix on Linux using Mozilla Firefox as well. You’ll have to enable DRM content because Firefox doesn’t support it by default.
Other Google Chrome based web browsers should also support Netflix.
But watching Netflix on Chromium browser is altogether a different ball game. Chances are that despite your efforts, you might not able to run Netflix on Chromium.
Watching Netflix on older versions like Ubuntu 14.04
Running Netflix on Ubuntu 14.04 is the same. At best, make sure that you have libnss3 installed.
Though libnss3 is already available in Ubuntu 14.04, if you cannot find it, you may use this unofficial PPA to install it.
Restart your system once you are done with these commands. You should also make sure that Netflix is using HTML5 playback. Expand the next section to learn how to enable HTML5 playback in Netflix.
This will be done when you are logged in your Netflix account. Go to your account settings and look for Playback Settings there:
Make sure that you have HTML5 viewing option checked:
That’s it. With nss3 and HTML5 playback, you should be able to see Netflix on Ubuntu 14.04 and other older versions.
Is there a Netflix desktop app for Ubuntu?
There used to be an unofficial Netflix desktop app for Ubuntu. This app ran Wine in the background so not really a native Linux desktop app.
This application has been discontinued and there is no other desktop app for Netflix anymore. The only way to watch Netflix on Linux is through the web browser.
If you want to watch US version of Netflix outside the US, you can use a premium DNS service like Unlocator to access it in any part of the world. In case you don’t have a legal or moral obligation against piracy, you can install Popcorn Time in Ubuntu. Popcorn Time is a torrent based streaming service that has Netflix like interface.
I hope this tutorial helped you to use Netflix in Ubuntu. Any questions or suggestions are always welcomed.
Like what you read? Please share it with others.
Is there a way to stream Netflix content to my Ubuntu machine?
12 Answers 12
Please note that Ubuntu releases 12.04, 14.04 and newer now support native Netflix playback via HTML5.
The solution in this answer should only be used in cases where native playback is not possible (e.g. unsupported Ubuntu releases, browsers other than Google Chrome).
Also note that as of Firefox 49, Netflix playback is natively supported.
As of December 7th, 2012 the following works on 12.04 and 12.10 (at least).
Note: For new instructions –as of October 2013– on how to install (Windows-) silverlight (ultimately useful to watch Netflix) in Firefox see at the end.
Open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T), an type:
This will install around 254MB of packages, mainly it will install wine-compholio (a custom version of wine that is able to run Silverlight) and dependencies. If wine is not installed already you may need to agree to use Microsoft fonts (in the text mode window use arrow keys or tab to reach the red “ok” button in text mode when it appears). The download/installation takes around 15 minutes.
Then run the newly installed “netflix-desktop” application from the menu (or from the command line).
If something went wrong in the installation (third party links are involved), don’t panic: netflix-desktop will detect that something is missing and try to reinstall it, if that also fails, start over.
When you run it for the first time it will initialize wine and probably ask about installing Mono and Gecko wine packages (I accepted and installed them just in case).
The netflix-desktop application opens up, login to your Netflix account.
The window will open in fullscreen, which is very elegant, but if you want to have control over the window press F11 right away to exit fullscreen mode. (It may also ask to install a Firefox extension –specially designed– that makes fullscreen mode more friendly.)
Use Netflix as you would normally do.
It worked flawlessly in my Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 (I have a Core i7).
(As you may have realized at this poin, the netflix-desktop is really Firefox 17 running on wine without menubars. Press F10 to gain control over the Firefox menu and navigation.)
Credits and references: This information was originally taken from Although this is a result of a campaign initiated by in resulting in this achievement (by Erich Hoover) which also contains a link for donations to support the development. There is also
Bonus: By running this you have a fully functional Firefox 17 (Windows version) with working Silverlight that can be used to navigate other sites, by pressing F10 -> View -> Toolbars -> Navigation menu on the main window you can access any site and be able to use Silverlight.
Unlike the blockbusters of yesteryear, we are lucky enough to get our entertainment delivered to the convenience of our living rooms in a matter of clicks. Netflix began as a movie rental service over mail, but it has now evolved into a behemoth of a media platform where you can watch anything to your heart’s desire. Netflix has a gigantic catalog to browse through, from all over the world. Though there is no native application for Netflix available on Ubuntu 20.04, in this guide we will discuss how you can watch your favorite movies and TV shows on Ubuntu.
Through the web browser
If you don’t want to meddle with the terminal and want an easy way to use Netflix, you can simply use its web-based application. Whether you’re using the built-in Firefox or if you’ve installed Chromium, you can navigate to:
Sign in using your login credentials and get the party started.
If you are accessing Netflix for the first time on Firefox, you will be prompted to enable DRM, under the bookmarks bar. It will show up like this:
You can just click on the “Enable DRM” button, and if the changes don’t take effect immediately, you can simply restart the browser or your computer and everything will be in place for you to get started.
Through Personal Package Archives (discontinued)
Wine is a popular compatibility layer for Ubuntu, which allows users to run Windows applications on many Linux distros, including Ubuntu. Through a Personal Package Archive (PPA), one opensource contributor had made a patched Netflix application available for Ubuntu desktop.
Unfortunately, as of the writing of this guide, the project has been abandoned and you cannot download the PPA anymore.
You’ll find a lot of articles on the Internet telling you to run the following commands in order to get the desktop application:
Through this command, you are referencing the PPA for Netflix.
Through this command you are updating your system, in order to resolve any dependency issues.
Finally, through this command you are installing Netflix for desktop use.
If you try to run these commands today, you will not be able to get any results as the PPA doesn’t exist anymore, and you will be prompted with errors.
I believe this desktop application project was abandoned when the Netflix application on Windows was migrated from an executable format to the Windows Store platform.
Conclusion
That sums up how you can enjoy your TV shows and Movies using Netflix on Ubuntu 20.04. I’ve conducted in-depth research on this topic using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. If you find any discrepancies or if you get to know of any other way, please sound off in the comments section below to initiate a discussion.
Karim Buzdar holds a degree in telecommunication engineering and holds several sysadmin certifications including CCNA RS, SCP, and ACE. As an IT engineer and technical author, he writes for various websites.
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How To Run Netflix On Ubuntu Linux [Tutorial]
Those who prefer to sit behind a Windows or OS X powered computer sometimes forget that there is a whole community of users across the world who prefer to step away from the mainstream operating systems and instead choose to use a version of Linux, with one of the most popular one being Ubuntu. Ubuntu offers a fantastic user experience to those who choose to use it, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always offer compatibility with applications and programs, with the extremely popular Netflix app being a prime example of this problem.
As we have so often seen in the past, if an app is not supported by a particular OS, a brave team of developers will always take the plunge to make a port of that very app, in this case, for Ubuntu. Erich Hoover and David Andrews have taken on that task to extend the reach of Netflix to Ubuntu, and through the clever use of a Windows build of Firefox, Microsoft Silverlight and some other small bits and pieces, they have managed to get a functioning Netflix desktop application up and running. For those who aren’t aware, Microsoft Silverlight isn’t supported for web streaming on Linux, and is only available to Windows and Mac users.
It remains to be seen whether or not Netflix will actually offer any official support for the Ubuntu platform, but considering they have gone to the lengths of offering Windows, OS X, iOS and Android apps, it seems as though that the chances are slim for an official Ubuntu release. It is rather staggering, considering the size of the Ubuntu user base, but Hoover’s and Andrews’ WINE based variant might just fill that void for loyal Ubuntu users who want to access their Netflix accounts. Check out the relatively simple steps below to get up and running with the unofficial Ubuntu Netflix app.
Step 1: To get up and running with the unofficial Netflix Ubuntu application, you will first of all need to install the relevant repository, or PPA as it is known in the Ubuntu world. Open up an instance of the Terminal and enter the following command:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio
Step 2: When the above command has been ran, immediately enter the following command into the same Terminal window:
sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop
NOTE: The above two commands are effectively adding a new Personal Package Archive (PPA) to the system and then installing the Netflix app with administrator privileges. The system will prompt for the admin password to be entered.
Step 3: The Netflix application can be located and launched by searching for Netflix in the Unity dash.
Step 4: When the Netflix application is opened and ran for the first time, it will download a number of files that are required to run. This will only happen for the initial run.
Step 5: When a video is ran for the first time through the Netflix application, Microsoft Silverlight will request the user to Enable DRM mode. Make sure to say yes to this.
Step 6: Voila. Netflix should be up and running on Ubuntu.
It may not be an official implementation of Ubuntu and does actually rely on WINE being installed on the system, but it should be more than sufficient to access and playback content from a Netflix account. With that said, certain small issues and compatibility problems could be experienced, so keep an open mind and head on over to the official support page for troubleshooting.
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If you would like to enjoy Netflix on Linux a few years back, it would have been frustrating. The good news is, Netflix is now completely supported on Netflix and you can even access foreign Netflix libraries by connecting to the servers of any of the VPN from our picks of the best Netflix VPNs. There is a catch though, you need to know how to watch Netflix on Linux.
Even though Netflix has been available on Linux for some time, it is not going to work without the right setup. All you need is the right software that is compatible with Netflix and Linux and you are good to go.
How can you forget the time when accessing Netflix on Linux was as difficult as finding the holy grail. It needed a specific version of Google Chrome with Encrypted Media Extension (EME) support. It additionally required a specific version of the User-Agent Switcher extension and Mozilla Network Security.
How do I watch Netflix on Linux Mint?
You can watch Netflix on Linux Mint by using Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You will have to add PPA (Personal Packages Archives) in order to install Netflix on Linux.
Which Browsers are Compatible with Netflix on Linux?
Even though there are various browsers that are compatible with Netflix on Linux but Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are considered to be the best. Here is how to use the browser individually, as the process can be stressful for new users, we are making sure that you understand each step individually.
How to watch Netflix on Linux using Google Chrome?
First of all instal the gdebi and wget pachages.
You can ensure that every possible prerequisite package is met by using gdebi for the install Google Chrome.
$ sudo apt install gdebi-core wget
Download the Google Chrome browser package.
Use gdebi command for the installation of the downloaded Google Chrome package.
$ sudo gdebi google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
Use the GUI menu for starting the Google Chrome browser or blow the command from the terminal.
How to watch Netflix on Linux using Mozilla Firefox?
Firefox is the default browser on Linux. If you have mistakenly uninstalled the browser, here is how you can install it on Linux.
Method 1
You can install Firefox from Standard Ubuntu which involves using an apt command for installing an updated version of Firefox.
Method 2
Another approach to install Firefox is from the official website.
Add the Mozilla signing key to the system.
$ sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys A6DCF7707EBC211F
Add Mozilla PPA repository in apt.
$ sudo apt-add-repository “deb focal main”
Now install the latest version of Firefox using this command.
Method 3:
This method involves directly downloading Mozilla from the official website to Linux.
Use the wget for downloading the latest Firefox version into the user’s home directory.
Extract the Firefox package to system’s /opt/ directory.
/FirefoxSetup.tar.bz2 -C /opt/
Make a backup of the Firefox binary executable.
$ sudo mv /usr/lib/firefox/firefox /usr/lib/firefox/firefox_backup
Create an /usr/lib/firefox/firefox executable by creating a new symbolic link from the /opt/firefox directory.
$ sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/lib/firefox/firefox
Is there a Netflix desktop app for Linux?
There was an app that you could use for the Netflix app and it was an unofficial tool which was a Windows app bundled with Wine. Even though it does not work anymore, here are the step-by-step guide to create Desktop Applications.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Go to the Netflix website.
- Enter the login credential and sign in to your Chrome.
- Three dots on the top right of Chrome browser is the Chrome menu button, click it.
- Select More Tools.
- Select Add to Desktop.
- Click Add in the dialog box.
- Check Open as Window.
- Confirm by clicking OK.
Software Requirements and Conventions Used
| Category | Requirements, Conventions, or Software Version Used |
| System | Installed Ubuntu 20.04 or upgraded Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa |
| Software | N/A |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions | # – requires given Linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command |
| $ – requires given Linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Netflix not working with Linux?Solutions
Here are the simple but effective solutions to solve the issues associated with the problem of Netflix not working on Linux.
- Run a Window virtal machice via VirtualBox. Enable the seamless mode to check if Netflix is natively working on your device.
- Run a Linux-based operating system on your hardware.
- Use an alternative device to enjoy Netflix. There are various devices that can easily stream Netflix including Mac, iPhone, Smart TV, Amazon Firestick, PlayStation series, and Roku.
No, currently there is no Netflix app for Ubuntu but you can use the Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browser to enjoy Netflix streaming without any interruption.
You can use different streaming tools including Kodi, Plex, Stermio, OpenELEC, VLC Media Player, or you can ideally download Netflix and enjoy unlimited movies.
No, Netflix just doesn’t work with Chromium. It only supports Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Closing
With this article, you now know how to watch Netflix on Linux. This information is gathered and tied on multiple systems so you don’t have to. As Netflix is the greatest platform to enjoy shows, documentaries, movies, you are all set to binge-watch anything you want. Happy streaming!
David Michaels
Coming from the field of software development and PC building, David Michaels knows the importance of protecting your online identity. He works tirelessly to assess VPN performance and does not hold back the criticism. He discusses streaming platform, technology, and internet privacy on weekdays while spending his weekend binge-watching Netflix and Traveling!
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 8:43 am
Netflix lets you stream movies and TV shows on Windows and Mac computers, Chrome OS, Android and iOS devices, and a number of set-top-boxes. But up until now there’s been no way to use Netflix video streaming on a Linux computer.
That’s because the desktop web browser version of Netflix relies on Microsoft Silverlight technology for streaming videos, and up until recently nobody could get Silverlight to play nicely with Linux.
Developer Erich Hoover has figured out how to get Silverlight 4 to work with the Firefox web browser in Ubuntu Linux by using Wine.
WINE technically stands for “Wine Is Not an Emulator,” but it’s basically a Linux app that makes it possible to run some Windows software in a Linux-based operating system.
In other words, what Hoover’s tools let you do is run the Windows versions of Firefox and the Windows versions of Silverlight in a Linux environment, rather than trying to get native Linux versions of those apps to work with Netflix.
At this point the install process is a little complicated. You have to patch and compile Wine and then install Firefox and Silverlight. You can find detailed command line instructions at iheartubuntu.
Update: There’s now an easier method for installing Netflix as if it were a standalone Ubuntu app.
If you’re patient (and if you’ve been waiting for years for a way to get Netflix and Linux to play nicely, I’m guessing you are), there should also be a simpler method soon, which will let you install Netflix as an app the same way you’d install any other software on an Ubuntu computer.
While the tools are currently designed for Ubuntu, this method for getting Netflix to run on a Linux computer should lay the groundwork for bringing Netflix to other Linux distributions as well.
Netflix is one of the biggest video streaming services on the planet. You’ll find movies, television, documentaries, and more streamed to mobile devices, televisions, laptops, desktops, and much more. What you won’t find, however, is an official Linux client for the service. This is odd, considering Netflix so heavily relies upon FreeBSD.
This is Linux, though, so as always the adage ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’ very much applies. With just a few quick steps, you can have a Netflix client on your desktop. This client does require the installation of the following extras:
I will walk you through the installation of this on a Ubuntu 14.04 desktop. I have also tested this same installation on both Linux Mint and Deepin – all with the same success. If you like living on the bleeding edge, you can get the full Netflix experience, without having to go through the steps I outline here. For that, you must be running the latest developer or beta release of Google Chrome with the Ubuntu 14.04 distribution. NOTE: You will also have to upgrade libnss3 (32 bit or 64 bit). Once you’ve installed all of that, you then have to modify the user-agent string of the browser so Netflix thinks you are accessing its services with a supported browser. The easiest way to do this is to install the User Agent Switcher Extension. The information you’ll need for the HTTP string is:
Name: Netflix Linux
String: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/38.0.2114.2 Safari/537.36
Group: (is filled in automatically)
Append?: Select ‘Replace’
If dealing with bleeding edge software and user agent strings isn’t for you, the method below works like a champ. The majority of this installation will happen through the command line, so be prepared to either type or cut and paste. Let’s begin.
Installing the repository prepare apt-get
The first thing you must do is open up a terminal window. Once that is opened, issue the following comands to add the correct repository, update apt-get, and install the software.
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio
sudo apt-get update
Now, you’re ready to start installing software. There are two pieces of software to be installed. The first is the actual Netflix Desktop app. The second is the msttcorefonts package that cannot be installed by the Netflix Desktop client (all other dependencies are installed through the Netflix Desktop client). The two commands you need to issue are:
sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
The installation of the netflix-desktop package will take some time (as there are a number of dependencies it must first install). Once that installation completes, install the msttcorefonts package and you’re ready to continue.
First run
You’re ready to fire up the Netflix Desktop Client. To do this (in Ubuntu), open up the Dash and type netflix. When you see the launcher appear, click on it to start the client. When you first run the Netflix Desktop Client you will be required to first install Mono. Wine will take care of this for you, but you do have to okay the installer. When prompted, click Install (Figure 1) and the Wine installer will take care of the rest.
You will also be prompted to allow Wine to install Gecko as well. When prompted, click Install for this action to complete.
At this point, all you have to do is sign in to Netflix and enjoy streaming content on your Linux desktop. You will notice that the client opens in full screen mode. To switch this to window mode, hit F11 and the client will appear in a window.
Although this isn’t an ideal situation, and there may be those that balk at installing Mono, by following these steps, you can have Netflix streaming video service on your Linux desktop. It works perfectly and you won’t miss a single feature (you can enjoy profiles, searching, rating, and much more).
Linux is an incredible desktop that offers everything the competition has and more. Give this installation of Netflix a go and see if you’re one step closer to dropping the other platforms from your desktop or laptop for good.
I would like to be able to watch Netflix on Ubuntu, but on the website it doesn’t let me do so. I also attempted to download netflix-desktop but when I click the icon it doesn’t do anything.
4 Answers 4
Clearing the wine browser directory and then re-installing as described by chargedPeptide in the comments for the previous answer worked for me.
The commands are:
I’ll provide the solution, which worked for me. First, to get a terminal output from netflix-desktop, you should launch it like this:
Second, when you install netflix-desktop from the ppa, it not always downloads and install a Windows version of Firefox. This installation is handled by the wine-browser-installer package, so one solution would be to remove
/.wine-browser directory and reinstall the package, as recommended above. Sadly, it did not work for me, and terminal output was still stating:
What helped is that I’ve downloaded Firefox for Windows manually, using the link, that displays, when you install wine-browser-installer package (in my case it was this version). Then I’ve installed it, using normal wine. It was installed under
/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Mozilla Firefox After that I’ve ran
That solved my problem, hope it’ll help.
The same people who brought you netflix-desktop (which really works very well, you might want to run it from terminal and post the output) just released pipelight to integrate silverlight into linux native firefox – thus allowing netflix.
Instructions are found here.
But for those in a rush:
And start firefox. This is a beta release though so nothing is guaranteed yet. As said previously you might want to give netflix-desktop a shot in the terminal and post the output.
I have had this problem over several versions of Ubuntu from 12.04 to date (currently on 14.04) This happens without fail when netflix pushes a requirement for a new version of microsoft silverlight. What always works for me is:
Close the browser netflix-desktop opened.
Open a terminal and issue the first command mentioned by @sickgemini
/.wine-browser which eliminates the entire contents of the .wine-browser folder in the users home directory which is where netflix-desktop keeps its settings and configuration. to be specific the content is:
If you see something else there you may wish to save it elsewhere because it will be gone after running the remove.
After eliminating this directory and it’s content the next launch of netflix-desktop performs exactly like the first launch and recreates the necessary information. At this point it operates as advertised. There is no need to reinstall, nor install additional plugins (assuming the original installation isn’t corrupted)
